


Stars in His Eyes

by Saychi_lady



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Exploring Space, Feelings, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Spock (Star Trek)-centric, exploring emotions, working through emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:29:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27743770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saychi_lady/pseuds/Saychi_lady
Summary: Spock, a quiet room, and reflections. The aftermath of the Narada incident.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Stars in His Eyes

There are eight small observation rooms on each of the high points of the ship.

These were built for engineering. If something damaged the hull, and technology failed to provide a visual, an engineer could access one of the observation rooms and physically look at any damage without leaving the ship.

In theory.

In practice, if damage was strong enough to have pierced the defense force field and breached the hull, being able to see the point of rupture was the least of a command teams’ worries.

Either way, an antiquated engineering practice allowed for small observation rooms with a clear view into space.

It was in one such room that Spock secluded himself.

These were seldom used, and potentially unknown to the general crew. One needed to enter a service tube in order to access them. After the incident of Narada and the aftermath of Vulcan-that-was, Spock found that he enjoyed the solitude and the small points of light from stars and planets which he could focus on.

Without fail, every two days, Spock found himself standing passively in the North Quadrant observation room B1. He would reflect on the days’ events, and catalog what needs he had yet to address.

He enjoyed the quiet hum of the Enterprise, and the slow march of stars passing.

The dark, unlimited vastness of space.

It would be yet another 2.32 months before the Enterprise reached the Mars Orbiting Spaceport in order to complete repairs.

The frenzy of organizing survivors and medical and relief efforts had died down, and the ship had settled into a somber mood of reflection and remembrance.

Spock found he was no different.

He allowed himself, partly out of morbid curiosity and partly because of the simple solitude of the observation room, to feel his emotions for short periods of time.

The best way to understand something, after all, was to study it.

So, he spent an average of 2.6 hours every other night in the observation room allowing his eyes to wander and analyzing layer after layer of emotions.

Looking from the outside, one might not know that anything was amiss.

A great, stinging ball of loneliness and fear lay in his heart, and Spock did not touch that.

Anger was the first emotion he dealt with.

Easy enough to understand, sharp and simple.

He was enraged at Nero, confused by a single being’s stalwart conviction that the answer to his own pain was to wipe out an entire world.

He was angry at himself, for being just seconds too slow to respond and rescue his mother.

Seconds.

Even a single second more, and his mother would still be alive.

He was angry at the Starfleet Commanders who failed to note communication anomalies in space.

Anger was easy enough to deal with. Easy enough to meditate away, to understand the origins of and to forgive himself for. He could not change the past. He could not change his or others’ decisions. What is, is.

It took two weeks, perhaps, before he the anger he felt became a dim ember. Not something he felt comfortable extinguishing, but something that was manageable, that would not overwhelm him.

He no longer felt the irrational surge of rage when he lay eyes upon James Kirk, for example. He could now look at the man and acknowledge that he played no role in the destruction of Vulcan. Rather, he performed admirably and with courage, following his instincts and his own personal morality.

He acknowledged that it was misplaced, to blame Kirk and resent his role in the events that preceded.

Desire was a harder emotion to settle, and Spock was loath to analyze this emotion for long.

Desire was rooted deep in his psyche - desire to fit in, to be different, to be worthy of love.

The desire for his home, for his mother, for a partnership to fill the literal hole in soul - these seemed to consume him. When not engaged in work or reporting for the Enterprise, Spock thought of little else.

Memories he had not analyzed since he was a youth, would be vivid in his mind’s eye.

A certain color reminding him of the traditional clothing worn by Vulcans of different families.

A smell of metallic heat and salt reminding him of the desert of Vulcan, sand expanding as far as the eye could see. His backyard to explore.

He would smell human perspiration, and be reminded of his mother’s damp brow and warm brown eyes.

As a result, Spock avoided the majority of his shipmates outside of working relationships.

James Kirk, of course, being the exception to the rule. They had somehow set up a recurring chess game each Sunday night. James would drink a hot (usually chocolate) beverage, and Spock would sip a hotter, herbal Earth tea (usually mint.)

These nights together were quiet, the two of them lost in their own thoughts, but Spock found the simple companionship to be beneficial, and he did not mind James Kirk’s presence when the man was neither taunting nor teaching him.

Spock did not allow himself to analyze any deeper emotions on these nights.

No. That was for the observation room.

Desire came and went - an emotion he knew he would never rid himself of.

It was of no consequence. It was only with time, and with his own subconscious working through the loss of home and family and planet, that these new desires would slowly become simmering aches, only to be brought to a boil with the right conditions.

No. Desire would never leave him.

Spock prodded gently, for several nights, at the mess of fear and pain and anguish and love at the center of him.

It was too much.

He was not equipped to handle, let alone analyze, such strong emotions.

He was frightened by his body’s physical response. By wet eyes and weakly trembling limbs.

Thus it was, that Spock stood quietly and felt little at all as he gazed out into space.

As he reviewed these emotions and wrapped them in cold and stillness and a thick blanket of willful peace.

Spock is not sure when he began to cry.

He does not, in any of his memories, recall a Vulcan crying. Though technically possible under extreme duress, the desert-dwelling Vulcan did not excrete any superfluous fluids.

Spock isn’t sure what made him cry the first time. What had he been thinking of? Most anomalous, to not know.

But it wasn’t a bad feeling, and Spock did not lessen the amount of times he visited the observation room.

Spock supposes to himself, that if he cannot deal with his knot of untouchable emotions consciously, it is only logical to allow his body to deal with them subconsciously. To allow the physical expression of that, whatever it may be.

He’s not sure what it is - the background hum, the bright stars slowly moving past, unfathomably innumerable, or space itself, unfathomably dark, but Spock begins to feel at peace.

The hole ripped in his Katra from the immediate extinction of millions of his kind, is repairing itself.

An illogical blanket of hope and wonder covering his wounded center.

How can one not feel wonder, at life and possibilities, when an uncountable number of stars blinked down from unreachable distances.

Spock was reminded of his early childhood. Of gazing at the night skies of Vulcan (the night skies which no one alive would ever see again), and of dreaming of acceptance. Dreaming of exploration and wonder, of colors and cultures and science yet to be observed.

And so it is, that Spock stands silently in the observation deck, and tears leak down him face.

They leave his skin feeling sticky and damp, but he does not brush them aside until he is ready to return to his quarters.

He feels lighter after each visit, each night of crying, and Spock does not give it much thought outside of his time there. It is his body’s way of dealing with pain.

And what is natural, is.

The waves of awe cleanse him.

They turn into the ebbing and flowing of peace, and Spock relearns what it is to be centered and full of logic. To be himself.

It will take time yet, he knows, to address and move on from this unnatural turn of fate.

But in the meantime, he is surrounded by stars, and is pleased to observe peace on the horizon.

**Author's Note:**

> I do a lot of driving on empty, flat roads. I love the feeling of peace and beauty that overcomes me, as the world washes by, and the mountains in the distance grow steadily closer. As the sun sets or rises, and rays of light play color games with the low hanging clouds. As melancholy and peace and awe all seem to settle lightly on my traveling soul.


End file.
